[UK] Sponsume is a new online platform to help individuals and organisations promote and crowd source the funding of their projects.
The site soft-launched this week and is the brainchild of Grégory Vincent, an ex-financial analyst and fund manager for M&G Investments, the investment branch of Prudential Plc. The London-based startup is currently bootstrapped with funding from ‘friends and family’.
At Sponsume’s heart is the ability to let entrepreneurs, artists, charities, inventors, or just about anybody, raise funds for their idea through the sale of project vouchers, which can – should the project go ahead – be redeemed for various rewards. These can be almost anything, except equity and intellectual property rights, with the contract existing between the user and project owner, not Sponsume itself. → Read More
Semi-transparent smartphone screens floating in front of the user Minority Report style are all the rage right now. Palm started it back in May with their first “Life moves fast. Dont Miss A Thing.” commercial. Microsoft had the unfortunate timing of launching a strikingly similar ad just 3 days later — and then RIM showed up with their crazy impromptu dance club remix of the idea just yesterday.
Oh well. Copy-cats aside, Palm’s carrying on with the idea. Showing off their new found abilities to make ads that don’t creep us out or otherwise turn us away, they’ve just released two more TV spots. (Heads up: Instead of cute lady people, these ones feature hipster dudes, one of whom seems to be trying to dress like Neo.)
Check’em out after the jump. → Read More
[Greece] Athens-based Virtual Trip Group has announced plans to start an angel investment fund through its subsidiary Virtual Trip Holdings SA. It will be focused on ‘innovative startups’ from Greece and abroad, and will be the third angel investment fund in the country following OpenFund and Driin Ventures.
What we know so far is that they’ll target investments of between €50.000 to €200.000 for an equity stake of around 35-45%. And while it can certainly be argued that this may not represent the best available deal out there, if we take into account the financial difficulties Greece is facing, it’s an offer that many startups could find both useful and necessary in order to stay out of the deadpool. → Read More
That’s funny. When I last wrote about Iron Man 2, I had guessed that Scarlett Johansson would be the only reason to see the movie, and it looks like I was right! The first review of the movie has been published, and it includes this: “Meanwhile, [Johansson] struts through the film in various stages of dress and undress, which might be the best thing about Iron Man 2 for its younger male fans.” Other than that? The movie is hot garbage. Go figure. → Read More
On the heels of the report that Apple purchased chip maker Intrinsity, Apple appears to have made another purchase: Siri, a personal assistant for the iPhone. According to a pre-merger notification released by the Federal Trade Commission, and first noticed by Robert Scoble, the transaction will not be held up by any antitrust reviews. The deal was likely small from Apple’s perspective. Siri is a small startup that has raised $24 million in funding. Update: Siri board member Gary Morgenthaler confirmed the transaction.
Siri brings a conversational interface to the iPhone which allows you to ask it to perform tasks for you such as find a French restaurant nearby and book a table, look up movie listings, order a taxi, or look up the phone number and address of a local business.You can read our full review of the app here. → Read More
Could this day get any better? The annual Apple Worldwide Developers Conference is happening on June 7. I suspect the iPhone HD or whatever it will be called will be there and it will be protected by robots and ninjas. → Read More
Lexar Media, a provider of memory products for digital media, recently announced the release of their Lexar Professional 600x and 300x 32GB CompactFlash cards as well as the Lexar Professional ExpressCard CompactFlash Reader. The products offer improved performance with a guaranteed minimum write speed of 90MB/s and 45MB/s for the 600x and 300x cards, respectively, when paired with an UDMA 6-enable device. The ExpressCard Reader is a portable CF card reader that fits into a PC or Mac ExpressCard slot and supports read/write speeds of up to 133MB/s. → Read More
So you bought your child an iPhone and you gave him or her an iTunes account and password and told them that they can simply download as many apps as they want, 24 hours a day, even if they cost money. But what’s this? Junior or Julia has started downloading saucy sex sensors and card games containing images of ladies in various states of undress? How did this happen? It’s Apple’s fault. The Parents Television Council (also known as Parents Against Adults) believe that Apple isn’t doing enough to prevent underage children from downloading apps even though each app download requires a password to be tapped in and parental controls can prevent certain apps from appearing on the phone. After all, it’s Apple’s responsibility to ensure that kids don’t see boobs, not yours. → Read More
Listen, I know it’s easy to make fun of Boy Scouts. I’ve heard my share of “Go build a birdhouse” jabs being an Eagle Scout myself, but let’s get this straight. The just-announced video game belt loop isn’t for Boy Scouts, it’s for elementary-aged Cub Scouts. So let’s take it down a notch or two, Internet. → Read More
Plastic Jungle, a marketplace for gift cards, is hoping to shakeup the gift card market by allowing gift card owners to use certificates for a given store at another online retail establishment. Plastic Jungle lets you buy, sell and exchange gift cards online. Instead of receiving cash for your gift card, Plastic Jungle also lets you trade the value in for an Amazon gift card or give your money to charity. Users can receive cash for unwanted gift cards for up to 92% of the unused balance and buy gift cards at up to a 30% discount.
Plastic Jungle, which just raised another $7.4 million in funding, will partner with online retailers to power a payment portal in the checkout process that will allow shoppers to use a credit from a different store to make an online payment. You enter the gift card like you would a credit card based on the unique serial number and pin code that every major gift card has. Similar to its exchange on the site, Plastic Jungle will offer you up to 92% of the unused balance on the card. So if you want to use a $100 Target.com gift card at Gap.com, you’d receive $92 from Plastic Jungle to put towards your Gap.com balance. → Read More
That right there? Yeah, it’s the world’s largest curved plasma screen. Betcha you didn’t even know that plasma screens could be anything but flat. I didn’t. This fine screen measures 200-inches and was unveiled yesterday in Japan’s Kansai International Airport Departure Area to clearly remind travelers that no matter where they go, no place does technology like Japan. That’s mean. Click through to embiggen the pic. → Read More
Polaroid, a company best known for its instant cameras and maybe for hiring Lady Gaga as their Creative Director, will be entering the gaming industry soon with a wide variety of video games accessories. These would mostly be peripherals for popular gaming system such as a microphone headset and battery packs for the Xbox 360, wireless controllers for the PS3, sports packs and a sensor bar for the Wii, as well as a dock for the Nintendo DS. → Read More
Lost iPhone prototypes aside, most Apple leaks tend to come from partners companies tasked with helping to build something Apple needs for a particular product. After all, Apple can’t do it all, itself. Well, not yet anyway.
A report today in the New York Times confirms earlier rumors that Apple has purchased Austin, Texas-based chip company Intrinsity. And yes, it appears that company is the one largely behind the new A4 chip found inside the iPad. An analyst put the price at $121 million, but again, he’s an analyst, so who knows. → Read More
It seems Japanese companies are releasing 3D displays on an almost daily basis. Yesterday, we reported about Toshiba’s 3D HDTV, and today Panasonic Japan announced [JP] two new 3D plasma TVs for their VIERA line-up, the TH-P65VT2 (65 inches) and the TH-P58VT2 (58 inches). → Read More
You know news is tight when the words “Prepped for shipping” warrant their own post. However, the iPads 3G are now “prepped for shipping” which means they should be winging their way to the US in the next few days, just in time for the April 30th cut-off date. → Read More
Have you seen Lady Gaga’s new music video with Beyonce, launched on Vevo and YouTube last month? The one that mixes busty blonde babes with Wonder Bread, Miracle Whip, Virgin Mobile, and a host of other brands? Troy Carter, Gaga’s manager who helped put together this video, will be speaking at TechCrunch Disrupt next month. Carter will join Google President and head of Business Development Nikesh Arora, Facebook product head Chris Cox, Google’s VP of engineering Vic Gundotra, and other executives at Disrupt to discuss our core themes of what’s now in content creation, distribution platforms, and –everyone’s favorite — monetization of media. Disrupt will take place May 24-26 in New York City at 570 Washington.
There’s still time to get our early-bird discount for Disrupt if you grab a ticket before Friday. → Read More
After all the police raids and legal musings, the next-generation iPhone that Apple engineer Gray Powell lost in a bar will likely reappear at Apple’s Worldwide Developer’s Conference, which the company today announced will take place on June 7. It is widely expected that Apple will officially unveil its next iPhone, the iPhone HD or whatever it will be called, at the event.
Yup, the one with the front-facing camera for video chat, bigger battery, better microphone, and retro 70s Braun stylings. Maybe there will be some surprises left. → Read More
Remember Sony Japan’s unusual promotion campaign for an 8-inch netbook (or ultra-mobile PC, as the Japanese like to call these devices) from December 2008? The target group was amused with the campaign. And it appears the marketing coup helped Sony actually sell the Vaio P, as the company today updated its Japanese site with yet another teaser for yet another “mysterious” netbook. → Read More
The itsy bitsy, teeny weeny, yellow polka dot, Vodafone 845 has just become official in the UK.
The device, manufactured by Huawei and running Android 2.1, measures the merest of 100 x 55 x 13 mm. → Read More
Klout, a startup that measures influence on Twitter, has secured $1.5 million in Series A funding from a number of investors, including Allen Morgan of Mayfield Fund, ff Asset Management, Bobby Yazdani, Nova Spivack of Lucid Ventures, Zelkova Ventures, Paige Craig, Tom McInerney, Michael Yavonditte of Quigo Technologies, and Ofer Ronen.
Klout, which recently released a new API, evaluates Twitter users’ behavior with complex ranking algorithms and semantic analysis of content to measure the influence of individuals and topics around the web. Since the company’s launch in 2008, Klout has registered over 250,000 users and over 300 API partners, including CoTweet, HootSuite, and the newly-launched Tweetup, and is handling millions of API calls a day. → Read More
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